High Peak Marathon (Derwent Watershed)
Heavy Breathing in the High Peak Marathon
Fi Spotswood (Team SleepMonsters) / 06.03.2006
Two weekends ago on the Quantocks on a particularly miserable foggy day, I was reminded by Jim and Hoops that the High Peak Marathon was looming. \'Oh yeah\', I thought, \'I entered that but didn\'t get in\'. Looking around at the grey, cold and miserable surroundings, tired from hours of biking and running, I smiled to myself. That particular ordeal was not mine to face.So what exactly was I doing last Friday evening negotiating snow covered roads with Jim on the way to Edale? What was I doing? I was demonstrating the simple fact that I can\'t ever say no.
So Heather and Hoops suffered last minute injuries and John \'the legend\' Cunningham and I stepped in. For the 5 hour journey up to Edale Jim told me how difficult the race is, how it is the hardest one of the year, how every year he swears never to do it again and how the same woman has never done it twice (cue jokes about one night stands).
Well, he wasn\'t lying.
Team SleepMonsters (John, Jim Godden, Tim Fairbrother and me) congregated in a tension-ridden Edale village Hall, made our polite introductions and prepared ourselves to spend the next 10-12 hours in each others company. We started at 11.32 - one of the last. Our strongest competition came from Tim Fairbrother\'s flat mate\'s team (with Sarah Hughes) and an Irish team. I knew how much Tim and Jim wanted that trophy and was painfully conscious of the huge gap between their ability and experience (let alone training) and mine.
The first 2 hours of the race can be summed up for me simply by the word \'fear\'. I was frightened that the pace was too fast, that the hills were going to tire me out too much later on, that I was letting them down, that John was towing me too much, that I STILL couldn\'t catch my breath, that I was unprepared, that I wished I had learnt to say \'no\' once in a while. I was scared I had bitten off more than I could chew. (I have to admit that this feeling is not new to me.)
But it didn\'t last. Suddenly it was 3.15am, I wasn\'t breathing heavily any more, the tow was slack and I knew I wanted to be the first chick over that line. The dynamics had changed and I was part of the race.
The conditions were extremely tough. Fluffy snow on the lower hills made them look like a big Christmas \'stollen\' cake. It was slippery, awkward, cold. Higher up the snow was thicker and had iced the top of the High Peak deceptively smooth. The reality was repetitive and energy-sapping sinking. We all became \'Eskimos\' - snow experts - able to recognise the snow that was frozen hard enough for you to run smoothly over it and the snow that broke and sucked at your ankles. Guess which there was more of?See All Event Posts
